The Pack
by Knightbird
Summary: A pack of werewolves has been roaming the countryside around Ottery Saint Catchpole. These are their stories. Series of oneshots, not connected chronologically.
1. Howl at the Moon

_This one shot/short story is not based off of any characters in the universe, but only the idea of a werewolf pack. I like the system used for werewolves in Harry Potter, but they never got much screen time apart from Fenrir and Lupin (which are both rather obviously wolfish names). Here is my take on the life of a werewolf. Review as you will. This could notably be on fictionpress, but it would waste needless time explaining the werewolf system, as well as magic. It just fits for the harry potter universe. _

Caledwyn. So much for blessed.

This wasn't the first time thoughts like that had crossed through the mind of young Caledwyn Nefis. He hadn't felt blessed. In 25 years of living, 20 of them were a living hell._ Blessed_. Ha ha. Funny joke, universe. In fact it's so darn funny, I think I'll cry.

Times like these, Cale thought he might as well just give up and go completely insane. Why not? Going completely wolfish couldn't be so bad. Greyback did it. Sure, he was stark raving mad, but hey, his life was so screwed up, going insane couldn't be so bad.

Times like these, he had to try hard to just keep going. Focus. His wolfish side told him to live, even though his weaker human wanted it to just end. That was how they kept going. Wolves always did have a bit stronger of a survival instincts than humans. That, most of his kind agreed, was what kept most of the population alive. Pure instinct. Yeah, funny joke, universe.

On the hunt again. Moon out. Running, always running. Hunting, biting, tearing the flesh...

Cale woke from his "dream" smacking his head on a post above him, some person he had never met, slowly bleeding beside him. They were lucky. He hadn't caught up till the dawn. Now, they just had to get some help. This didn't happen every time, at least, Cale was fairly certain it didn't. You couldn't be sure. There was always that question. Who did I curse? Who have I ruined? It always came, eventually. In the papers and news, or in a flash of nightmare, or even from the person he had bitten. If he was near, he sometimes even talked to the people. As he did now.

Cale first mended the two lines of puncture wounds along the torso of the person he now recognized as a woman. "Are you awake?" He asked, his voice still croaking from the howls that had sounded only hours before.

"Mhng...?" She was still waking up, still groggy from the poison in her system. "Where'm I?"

"A barn"

"Who are you?" She was starting to grow nervous. People of opposite gender always were. After all, they didn't remember what happened. For all they knew they had just been raped.

"Your guide." Cale said. Anyone bitten, if they were still around, had to have someone show them their way around. Some of them tried to continue normal life, but almost all came back to the packs in the end. Almost all.

"What?" the girl was more confused then ever. "Who are you?"

"Not now." Cale said, and whipping out his wand, he stunned her. Hoisting her up on his shoulder, he headed off to the place he had transformed, walking quickly, even with the weight on his back. In about 15 minutes, he reached his destination, laying the girl down in a small copse of trees that protected his few belongings from outside view. He had taken his isolation to the extreme, not even renting out rooms to live in. With magic, it wasn't so bad, and he had his pack for company, prickly and wolfish though they sometimes were.

Waking her up with a quick mutter of "Ennervate" he leaned against the side of a tree, facing his latest "victim."

"Who are you" The girl asked again, fear creeping into her voice, "What do you want?" She was quickly growing hysterical. He wasn't surprised. Even if she didn't remember the details, she probably still had some kind of subconscious recollection of his attack.

"I am Cale." Cale said. This explanation was never easy. He had to keep his wand ready, just in case. "And I, am a werewolf." Everyone reacted differently when he told them. Some just freaked out, and tried to get away. Some held no such predigest and stayed, not realizing what that entailed. The worst ones were people who figured out why they had been knocked out. This girl looked to be one of them. He could tell she knew what last night was, what the full moon could mean.

"W-werewolf?" She said, stumbling over her words, "But... no. I can't. No!"

"Get over it" Cale said. He hated these stupid melodramatics. "It could be worse." There were people who weren't attacked quite so close to the dawn. Some of them died, but the ones that lived were violently disfigured. They almost always had large and visible scars, and sometimes even diseases and other internal complications.

"_Worse?! _How could it get much worse than this?" The girl was shouting now, crying. Hysterical. Most were once they realized what they had become. Cale didn't really understand the big deal. Sure, it made life a bit harder, but you were still alive. You would still have your pack, your family. In the time before the current system, back in the dark days of the first and second wars, you were either a servant of Voldemort, or dead.

That had been only five years ago, and Cale had joined the dark lords forces. He had no choice in the matter really. Or at least he told himself he didn't, when he remembered what he had done. Murder as an uncontrolled wolf was one thing, but when you set that on innocents, purposefully, it was just evil.

"I could have killed you." Cale finally said, coming out of his thoughts. "For all you know, I might still."

That shut her up. Always did. Most people were even more frightened of death than they were of werewolves. "But I won't. I don't kill as a human."

"So it's okay when you... _transform_?" She said, contempt in her voice "As long as you can blame it on someone else, killing is fine?"

"Actually, yes it is." People asked that sometimes too. They didn't seem to get that the wolf and the man were distinct.

She still hadn't really come to grips with what was happening, Cale thought. She still thought as werewolves as something distinct from her. Not anymore. She was part of the pack now, whether she wanted it or not.

"Can I go home?" She asked now, her voice less defiant now, pleading with this unknown man. "Please, just let me go"

"You can go home to gather your things and say goodbye, if you like." Cale said. This girl was much older than he had been. At 18, if not a little older, as it was spring, and school was in session. "You can't stay around humans anymore. You won't be safe."

"Well you still bit me. How much safer is leaving if people can still get attacked and killed?" She would fight to stay at her home. All of the ones older than about 10 did. They had been living in a normal family, in a normal home, going to a normal (as normal as Hogwarts could be) school. They didn't want to leave their life behind.

"I was without my pack. We are different without the pack. One our own, we hunt without need, simply so the wolf can taste blood. But with our brothers and sisters in the pack, we are one. We are unified. We are strong." Cale hadn't appreciated the pack till he was old enough to be let out on his own. He had seen what happened to wolves without their pack. He had seen it all.

_I was going to continue, but I think it works better if it's just this. I'll probably expand on this further, especially since I'm about to do a werewolf challenge.  
_


	2. The Siege of Saint Catchpole

_This partis entirely third-person werewolves. Fun stuff, huh?_

Tonight, the pack was out in force. All ten of its members were here. All 10 were full wolfish, and ready to kill. All ten were loose in the English countryside by Ottery Saint Catchpole. It was their hunting grounds now that the war was over. The other packs knew to stay out. They knew the danger. The wizards didn't, and the muggles knew even less. 10 had been transformed, injured, or killed since the wars end a year ago. But the ministry did nothing. They were rebuilding, and so the pack ran free, their usual restraint shattered from the fresh blood in the air.

Tonight, they were out for the kill. Tonight, they had prey in their sights. The muggles in the village had no defense against them. They had no weapons that could penetrate the wolves hide. They could only run, or die.

The wolf pack began to stream through the streets, the smallest and fastest pair going in first, followed by the Alpha pair, then three of the largest, two medium sized, and the best tracker following in the rear, alert for wizards from behind. As the lead pair entered, they relayed back prey locations with howls and barks. This was more than a normal wolf pack. This was almost military. A first direct strike against the village. They first met a magic user about 50 meters into the village, but he was down before he could even draw his wand, bitten in the neck, his lifeblood slowly draining into the street. The howls and barks had woken up the muggles and wizards alike, but the darkness of the night concealed the wolves as they tore through the people in the street. One of the wizards in the road managed to draw out his wand, and shot a stunner at the biggest wolf in the pack. IT bounced off and smashed a window, and the man spun, disappearing into the night.

The wolves moved further into the village, attacking or killing people as they went. Soon, everyone was either dead or dieing, or off the street. The wolves, began to move towards the more remote wizards homes, but as they did, the first bursts of sunlight appeared over the horizon. As the wolves changed back, Cale, the alpha shouted "OUT!" and they all spun into the dawn, disappearing.

As they landed, Cale said "We need to move." He used a quick charm to wash the blood from his clothes, "There will be retribution, and we are too dangerous to the people here. We shouldn't have stayed so close to the village."

"Would you have us move again, Calewdyn?" One of the smaller members of the pack asked.

"Kaitlin is right. This is our home" One of the largest said "We have fought for it, and Aidan died for it."

"I know, Gabriel. But we must be more careful Stay further away from populations. We cannot let anything like this killing happen again."

"Never again"

_That was relatively short, but I like the idea of werewolves actually attacking a village. We heard about werewolves being set on people, but never saw it. That's what this is for_


	3. Snake Bite

_This is for the challenge Bite Me, on the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum.  
_

Scorpius had, for the most part, a normal life. He wasn't married, at 22, but Rose was worth it. He would propose soon. Very soon. In about an hour or so, in fact. His first mistake that night, was to walk. No apparition. That was rude, and it would be more romantic if he arrived at the door. Sure, he had to travel through some unlit areas, but he was a wizard. He could take care of himself. Or not.

Scorpius could see the lights of The Burrow in the distance. It wasn't far, so he started to pick up his pace, excited at the prospect of this dinner. His fortune could pay for it, and anything else he wanted until he was 30. Then, his father was going to cut him off. Make him work. Scorpius didn't find that unfair. It would do him good to make an honest living. He continued, looking up at the full moon shining down on him. It didn't provide much light, but it was enough for him to see a slight movement ahead of him. Since it was a time of peace, he didn't both to raise his wand at the noise. That was almost his last mistake. A wolf, larger and stronger than any he had seen, burst from the shadows along the small lane he was following.

Before he could so much as raise his wand are, he was down, the wolves jaws about to close over his neck. They never got that far. He felt the weight lifted off him, and a piercing pain on his arm, like huge needles sinking into his skin, then another across his chest, as the two wolves claws raked over him. He rolled over, catching a brief glimpse of the lights of The Burrow. Finally losing consciousness, his head drooping, he saw the wolf engaged with another, one of them fighting his attacker off. He didn't understand, wolves fighting wolves? Drifting into unconsciousness, he heard a scream, his name, distant... fading.

Scorpius was in a black space. An endless, black box, or at least he imagined it to be a box. He sat, or did he stand? It didn't really have relevance in this crushing dark. Utterly alone. The only explanation Scorpius could think of was the he was dead, or in a coma, or something. But then... a growl. It was the same one from the road to The Burrow. The same one that had apparently snuffed out his life. The growl continued, growing progressively louder, until it transformed into a howl, pounding in on him from all sides. Suddenly a paw roughly the size of Scorpius slammed down next to him, and a wolf head of similar proportion came out of the darkness, and the howling turned back into a growl, obviously coming from the wolf now. _Well if I wasn't dead yet, I will be now_.

Just as a the wolfs head was about to snap him up, a loud hiss came from behind him, it's huge mouth closing around the wolf's neck. The wolf thrashed, knocking the snake off, but slowing down, then falling, bleeding heavily from the neck, it's spine cracking loudly. As it finally fell to the "floor" of the darkness, it began to fracture, splitting, then disappearing. The cracks ran outward from the dead wolf, finally consuming Scorpius, and causing him to lose consciousness again.

When he finally came to again, it was bright. To bright. Groaning, he covered his eyes with his arm, and someone gasped beside him. "Rose, he's waking up!"

"What?" Scorpius said, sifting into a sitting position, until he was smothered by his girlfriend, and forced to lie back down.

"You're all right!" Rose shouted into his ear, quickly deafening him.

"Quieter..."

"Sorry." Rose said, dropping her voice, "You had us worried there Scor."

"What happened?" Scorpius asked, sitting back up again, but staying close to Rose.

"You were attacked." A much different voice said. Ron had never really accepted Scorpius, which was understandable, considering his fathers history with Ron. "By a wolf."

Scorpius knew that. He knew what that had to mean. "Damn." And he fell right back, dropping into unconsciousness.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

The next time, Scorpius woke up, it was dark again, but he knew he was still at the Weasley's, so that much time couldn't have passed. He was sure his father would either get him voluntarily or come in and curse everyone in his way to get him. He looked around, and saw that there was no one in the room... or was there? A young man, with a muscular build seemed to pop out of the shadows. "I think we've met before" Caledwyn Nefis said, walking towards Scorpius.

"Who are you?" Scorpius asked quietly, not wanting to frighten anyone. He still had his wand on him. "How did you get here?"

"I am the one who bit you, and I need you to come with me." Cale said, flicking out his wand and wordlessly disarming Scorpius, sending his wand flying out of his hand, and clattering off the wall.

"Get away!" Scorpius said, almost shouting now, wanting to alert, someone, anyone. He heard feet pounding towards the door, going up flights of stairs towards him. As the man grabbed him, and disapperated, he saw Rose, blurring away from him.

As the two landed, Scorpius struggled and fought, trying to get away from the other man's crushing grip. "I would appreciate it if you would stop struggling, Scorpius." Cale said, "I don't want to stun you."

"Why did you take me?" Scorpius asked furiously. "What do you want?"

"You are now a werewolf. You are dangerous." Cale said, turning his back on Scorpius. "You must stay away from the unafflicted."

"What are you talking about?" Scorpius asked "I've heard of werewolves who live in normal society. Why should I be different?"

"They are unusual cases. They are inherently calmer wolves. They are not quite so vicious or persistent when they transform. It is something like what happens to us when we are around the pack."

"I"m leaving!" Scorpius said, furious, "You can't hold me!", and with that, Scorpius spun off into the night, back to the burrow.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

_One year later_

Scorpius sat in the home that was now his, with rose, who he had married shortly after his bite. They now lived in a small cottage in Ottery Saint Catchpole, about 5 miles from the burrow. But now, he had to leave. It was full moon, and he was about to change. He disapperated to a seemingly random copse in the country side. There, he sat and waited. Soon, others popped in around him,taking seats in a circle. As the sun slowly faded into the night, and the moon appeared, they began to change. Some violently, others almost peaceful as they let the wolf overcome them.

Soon, they were all as one, part of the pack. There was no separate identity. They was only the pack, and they ran together.

_Well... thats that. I think I'll add to it again someday with another oneshot. Scorpius, I mean.  
_


End file.
